Off Before I Reach My Floor
The light on my floor's already dark before I reach it this week. I still tell my mom I love living alone.
My building's stairwell lights work on motion, one flight ahead of you and gone again once you pass. I've lived here long enough to know the rhythm, floor two catches first, then three, and by the time I hit four the second floor light is already dead behind me.
This week the fourth floor light doesn't wait for me. I come around the landing on three and it's already off up there, like it caught someone's motion and lost it again before I ever climbed high enough to trip it myself.
I told my mom on the phone Sunday that I love living alone, that the quiet doesn't bother me at all. What I didn't tell her is that most nights now I call her back on purpose around the time I hit the lobby, let it ring twice, hang up, and talk to nobody all the way up four flights so it looks like I'm not climbing by myself.
Tonight the light's off again before I round the corner. I stand on the landing a second, listening for a door easing shut somewhere above me. Nothing. I go up anyway, phone to my ear, saying something to no one, loud enough for whoever's up there to hear that I'm not alone either.